Where is your favorite place on this earth? A place that you go to often. For me it is Hume Lake Christian Conference Grounds. I’ve been going there since I was a small child. When we lived in Southern California I could get to Hume, which is in the Sequoias, Central California, without a map. The map was in my head!
Think of all the maps you have in your head. Does that map in your head make it easier to get to your destination?
I’ve lived in Atlanta for the past four years – I have very few maps of Atlanta in my head. At 76 years of age it is a lot more difficult to retain them too.
Now, imagine you are given directions to a new doctor’s office; but they give you the middle portion of the directions first. Next, they give you the beginning, and then they give you the end. Oh yes — and they didn’t tell you of the strange way they gave you the directions – it is up to you to figure it out.
THAT IS ALL TOO OFTEN WHAT WE DO WITH CHILDREN
AS WE TEACH THEM THE BIBLE.
From the beginning of creation God had a plan; He knew each detail of every life He would create. There is no chaos, no coincidences with the Triune God, there is always order. If your children are only learning random stories from the Bible, they won’t be able to develop a good mental map of God’s plan for them.
Be intentional in guiding your children to develop an internal Biblical Roadmap.
When the Triune God created Adam and Eve He knew they were going to sin — He is all-knowing. He had a plan!
When Adam and Eve sinned, the ground was cursed; when Cain sinned, he himself was cursed. Genesis 4:13-14. Eve had had hopes that Cain would lead to the redemption of mankind (Genesis 3:15). Now what?
GOD IS MERCIFUL!
Neither Man, nor Satan, can alter God’s plan. “And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and called his name Seth, for she said, “God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him.” To Seth also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. At that time people began to call upon the name of the LORD.” (Genesis 4:25-26 ESV)
God had a plan!
That plan is revealed,
like a road map,
when we take the children
through the Bible in order.
We begin in Genesis and show how God thwarted Satan’s plan in the garden, continuing story by story —which is revelation by revelation — to see how each man and woman written of in the Bible was a part of God’s plan to bring us to Jesus.
Pharaoh wasn’t an accident.
“For by now I could have put out my hand and struck you
and your people with pestilence, and you would have been cut off from the earth.
But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power,
so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.
You are still exalting yourself against my people and will not let them go.”
Exodus 9: 15-17
The LORD has made everything for its purpose,
even the wicked for the day of trouble.
(Proverbs 16:4 ESV)
When children have the Biblical Roadmap internalized, they will have a deeper understanding of how much the Tri-une God loves them — AND how He takes great pleasure in them as they walk with Him through life.
Psalm 147, 149
Be intentional to help your children create this internal Biblical Roadmap. If you do, there is a much greater chance that they will walk with the Tri-une God into adulthood and on into eternity.
